Workflows for Virtual Reality Visualisation and Navigation Scenarios in Earth Sciences

Mel Krokos, Fabio Luca Bonali, Fabio Vitello, Varvara Antoniou, Ugo Becciani, Elena Russo, Fabio Marchese, Luca Fallati, Paraskevi Nomikou, Martin Kearl, Eva Sciacca, Malcolm Whitworth

2019

Abstract

This paper presents generic guidelines for constructing customised workflows exploiting game engine technologies aimed at allowing scientists to navigate and interact with their own virtual environments. We have deployed Unity which is a cross-platform game engine freely available for educational and research purposes. Our guidelines are applicable to both onshore and offshore areas (either separately or even merged together) reconstructed from a variety of input datasets such as digital terrains, bathymetric and structure from motion models, and starting from either freely available sources or ad-hoc produced datasets. The deployed datasets are characterised by a wide range of resolutions, ranging from a couple of hundreds of meters down to single centimetres. We outline realisations of workflows creating virtual scenes starting not only from digital elevation models, but also real 3D models as derived from structure from motion techniques e.g. in the form of OBJ or COLLADA. Our guidelines can be knowledge transferred to other scientific domains to support virtual reality exploration, e.g. 3D models in archaeology or digital elevation models in astroplanetary sciences.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Mel K., Luca B., Fabio V., Varvara A., Ugo B., Elena R., Fabio M., Luca F., Paraskevi N., Martin K., Eva S. and Whitworth M. (2019). Workflows for Virtual Reality Visualisation and Navigation Scenarios in Earth Sciences.In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Geographical Information Systems Theory, Applications and Management - Volume 1: GISTAM, ISBN 978-989-758-371-1, pages 297-304. DOI: 10.5220/0007765302970304

in Bibtex Style

@conference{gistam19,
author={Krokos Mel and Bonali Luca and Vitello Fabio and Antoniou Varvara and Becciani Ugo and Russo Elena and Marchese Fabio and Fallati Luca and Nomikou Paraskevi and Kearl Martin and Sciacca Eva and Malcolm Whitworth},
title={Workflows for Virtual Reality Visualisation and Navigation Scenarios in Earth Sciences},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Geographical Information Systems Theory, Applications and Management - Volume 1: GISTAM,},
year={2019},
pages={297-304},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0007765302970304},
isbn={978-989-758-371-1},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Geographical Information Systems Theory, Applications and Management - Volume 1: GISTAM,
TI - Workflows for Virtual Reality Visualisation and Navigation Scenarios in Earth Sciences
SN - 978-989-758-371-1
AU - Mel K.
AU - Luca B.
AU - Fabio V.
AU - Varvara A.
AU - Ugo B.
AU - Elena R.
AU - Fabio M.
AU - Luca F.
AU - Paraskevi N.
AU - Martin K.
AU - Eva S.
AU - Whitworth M.
PY - 2019
SP - 297
EP - 304
DO - 10.5220/0007765302970304